They chatted about everyday things, the policemen touched by how hard the patient tried to find conversation, to somehow make his situation appear normal. When Doctor Lopez and Sister Appleton rejoined them and made as if to sit down, Mikey seemed to shrink inside his baggy jacket.
‘Marvellous,’ the DI said heartily. ‘Right, I think we can take it from here, thank you.’
The indignant protest on Sister Appleton’s lips subsided before Markham’s coolly authoritative stare, while Doctor Lopez – after the briefest hesitation – nodded. ‘We won’t be far away.’
Setting down the refreshments on an adjacent coffee table, they promptly withdrew, though the nurse continued to hover at the far end of the lounge.
Mikey’s exhausted eyes rested on his visitors with gratitude.
‘Reckon it must be a relief to have a break from the medicos now an’ again,’ Noakes observed, staring after Doctor Lopez’s retreating back with no very benignant expression.
‘Ain’t that the truth,’ sighed the other.
‘Are they treating you all right in here, Mr Belcher?’ Markham asked. And then, as the patient’s eyes flickered sideways, ‘Don’t be afraid, whatever you tell us is confidential. Just between the three of us, I promise.’
‘We won’t be sharing it with Dr Kildare over there,’ growled Noakes, reaching for his tea.
‘Look, I know I’m a sick man, gents… I crossed the line … did bad things which landed me here…. Lashed out at staff as well cos … well … they weren’t always kind and I’ve got a temper.’
‘We know you had it rough growing up.’
‘So did Dave.’ His face suddenly looked tiny and vulnerable. ‘I couldn’t keep him safe,’ he whispered. ‘You can’t imagine how terrible that was.’
For one searing moment, Markham saw the face of the little brother he couldn’t protect, long since lost to drink and drugs. Yes, I can, he thought.
‘Up till now they said I was doing well … almost ready to move on from high dependency…’
‘An’ then you blew it?’ Noakes was elaborately casual. ‘Didn’t do enough sucking up?’
Mikey grinned and some of the strain seemed to leave his face.
Well done, Noakesy.
‘Rick and Tony, two of my mates … they’ve been in here longer than anyone else…. They told some story in the patients’ council about women going missing from the hospital years ago … said they’d gone to be cut up and never came back.’ He looked at them helplessly. ‘They’re a bit bonkers and it sounded very Boris Karloff, so I couldn’t tell if they were taking the piss.’ With a shaky smile he continued. ‘But it bothered me…. Kept me awake at nights…. They said it was Doctor Warr and a policeman who took care of things … called him Magnum.’
‘You reported this?’ Markham’s voice was sharp.
‘Yeah … for all the good it did me.’
‘Go on.’
‘The guys said they were just showing off – trying to freak the rest of us out with ghost stories and stuff. Doctor Lopez and the rest of them told me to drop it.’ Mikey’s eyes flashed scorn, and he suddenly appeared much more alert than the apathetic figure they had initially encountered. ‘But it didn’t feel like a ghost story, Inspector. And there was something about the way they looked – all sly and knowing. I just knew they were telling the truth.’
‘What happened after that?’
‘Well, everybody shut up about it … except me … I s’pose I got angry when people wouldn’t listen, which didn’t help.’
‘How did you get on with Doctor Warr?’
Mikey looked surprised. If this was a performance he was acting, he was the best actor Markham had ever seen.
‘I didn’t like him.’ The dark brows knitted. ‘It felt like he was always trying new things out on me … that I was just a guinea pig. After he left and Miss Sladen took over it was much better.’ There was a faint sparkle in his eyes now, a gleam of hope. ‘She’s going to arrange for me to see Dave again.’
‘Good,’ said Markham, not caring to analyze the odd, newly awakened consciousness he felt at hearing the attractive psychologist’s name. ‘There’s no reason why you shouldn’t be able to have visits.’
‘Unless you wig out,’ put in Noakes laconically.
Markham sighed theatrically. ‘You must forgive my sergeant’s lack of bedside manner, Mr Belcher.’
Mikey gave a bark of laughter.
Sister Appleton’s head whipped round in the direction of the sound.
‘Bandits at six o’clock,’ Noakes said out of the side of his mouth as she came towards them.
They got to their feet.
Mikey extended his hand. ‘Thanks for listening,’ he said simply.
The nurse looked suspiciously at them as though this was an act of dangerous freemasonry.
Escorting them past the goldfish bowl nursing station in its Perspex bubble, she said abruptly, ‘Far be it from me to interfere.’
In Markham’s experience, this was invariably the preface to people making him a present of their opinion.
‘But,’ here it comes, he thought, ‘the patients on this ward are highly manipulative.’ Sister Appleton’s lips tightened. ‘Pathologically deceptive and highly impulsive. You shouldn’t take them at face value.’
That’s us told, then.
Doctor Lopez was nowhere to be seen. Markham wondered if he had hightailed it to Claire Holder’s office to brief her on their proceedings.
‘Thanks for your input, Sister Appleton,’ he said crisply. ‘I understand from Mr Belcher that his visitation rights are going to be restored in the near future.’ He gave her a long hard stare. ‘You can be assured, I am taking a close personal interest in his case.’
‘Ta, luv,’ Noakes said with sunny innocence. ‘It’s not so bad in here. Quite cosy akshually.’ He looked around wide-eyed. ‘Bit like a youth club.’ He winked at her. ‘If you don’t count the padded cells.’
The woman crimsoned to her hairline. Before Noakes could utter another word, the DI propelled him firmly through the swing doors and out into the corridor.
‘God, Sergeant,’ he said, ‘no point winding them up unnecessarily. Cooperation’s the name of the game, remember.’
‘Her and Doctor Lopez … a right smarmy pair … gave me the willies, both of ’em.’
‘I didn’t much care for them myself,’ Markham admitted. ‘And it sounds like Mikey was on to something. But let’s not jump to any conclusions. The patients back there are on that ward because they’ve done some pretty terrible things … too dangerous for release into the community.’ The DI looked apprehensively along the linoleum-floored corridor as though the walls could hear his words. Lowering his voice, he said, ‘We can’t rule anyone out.’
Noakes nodded phlegmatically.
‘Where to now, boss?’
‘Let’s see how they’re getting on with the archives.’
The archives room was as thoroughly claustrophobic as the rest of the hospital, despite being situated in the old heart of the building. A window at the back looked out on to a shrubbery. In summer, the sun-dappled copse no doubt afforded an inviting retreat, but on a dank winter morning its dark, cavernous bushes looked menacing as though the rustling undergrowth might conceal who knew what horrors.
Markham gave himself an admonishment not to be morbid. It was just the contrast between the new buildings’ toy-town brilliance and the crumbling gloom of the Victorian architecture that he found unsettling.
Burton and Doyle were hunched over the index card cabinets. Beside them, Linda Harelock studied the paperwork that had been faxed through from Ted Cartwright’s office with frowning concentration, her pleasant face the picture of honest bewilderment.
‘I take it none of those names mean anything to you, Mrs Harelock?’
‘I’m racking my brains, Inspector, but it’s just a fog,’ she said apologetically. ‘If we can pin them to something in the files, maybe I’ll have a better idea.’
‘We
’re talking the eighties and nineties, sir,’ Burton piped up.
‘Oh, that was when Doctor Kennedy was here.’ Linda Harelock was glad to contribute something.
‘Doctor Kennedy?’
‘He’s dead now, him and Doctor Molloy. They were Doctor Warr’s mentors when he was training.’
Markham jammed his hands into his pockets.
Dead. And their secrets buried with them, no doubt.
‘Isn’t there some sort of computer database of patients?’ he asked in exasperation. ‘I mean, isn’t there a system for cross-referencing?’
‘Not for that time frame, sir.’ Burton pulled a face. ‘Nothing for it but to go through the boxes.’ She gestured wearily at the shelving and stacks.
The DI thought of that confidential file back on his desk at the station. From the sound of it, Cartwright had only sent over the cold cases, but the DCC wanted answers for patients who had fallen off the radar in the last five years.
He needed to check the more recent cases. There was bound to be some sort of computer trail he could follow. Had to be.
If some past conspiracy lay behind Jonathan Warr’s murder, then its tentacles reached into the present….
He swung round to Noakes. ‘I want to speak to Mr Hewitt. He lost his wife through Doctor Warr’s flawed clinical judgment, so I figure he’s worth a visit. Then I want to run some checks back at the station.’
‘Righto, Guv.’
Outside, a sullen mackerel sky brooded overhead.
The smooth, clean curves of the Newman’s modern wings snaked out from the old Victorian tower with its hanging clock.
Time was running out.
8. Wheels Within Wheels
JIM HEWITT LIVED A little way outside Bromgrove in the suburb of Riversdale, so there was time to mull over developments.
‘Doctor Warr was sixty-four when he was murdered.’ Markham ran through the scenario out loud. ‘That means he would have been in his mid-thirties and forties when he was working under those other two doctors … Kennedy and Molloy….’
‘Climbing the greasy pole, Guv,’ Noakes agreed. ‘So, if they were doing dodgy operations, he could’ve been in on it.’
‘Lobotomies had their heyday in the nineteen-forties and fifties,’ the DI mused. ‘Once tranquilizers came along, there wasn’t the same need for invasive surgery.’
‘No more poking around in folks’ skulls, then.’ Noakes sounded relieved.
‘Well, it’s much subtler now. You won’t find doctors cracking through the orbital bone with an ice pick. These days it’s all computer-guided electrodes and precision technology – like when people have keyhole surgery.’ Markham grimaced. ‘Supposedly, none of it can be done without the patient’s consent, but …’
‘If there was no messy stuff involved in the ops, then why’d the killer stab Warr through the eye?’
‘I’ve been thinking about that.’ Markham negotiated a tricky roundabout before resuming. ‘Doctor Warr had an antiquarian’s interest in medicine. That office of his was wall to wall histories of neurology, including the glory days of the lobotomy…. There was a whole shelf devoted to ice pick surgery…. Made me wonder if our murderer shared Warr’s fascination….’
‘What, they sat in his room looking up gory details?’
‘Something like that, yes…. Becoming fixated and brooding.’
‘S’pose it’s possible,’ Noakes conceded. ‘His room wasn’t cordoned off or owt like that, so chummy could’ve snuck in … assuming they got one of those swipe card thingies for the door.’ The DS scowled ferociously, as was his habit when following a train of thought. ‘So, you’re saying the killer decided those dead medicos an’ Warr fucked about with someone … a relative or someone they loved … an’ plotted to get revenge?’
‘If by “fucked about” you mean the doctors reduced their patient to the condition of a zombie, with no personality or independent will, then yes, I think that’s what had happened. Kennedy and Molloy were beyond our murderer’s reach—’
‘Which left Warr.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Jesus.’
It was an uncomfortable image. The murderer, incubating and feeding that hatred, as though the Newman was some monstrous hatchery.
‘Why would someone end up getting operated on like that?’
‘Oh, there could be any number of reasons.’ After Olivia had gone to bed the previous evening, Markham had sat at the computer in his study reading everything he could find about psychosurgery and the abuses it had spawned. ‘Mental retardation, depression, hypersexuality, schizophrenia, alcoholism. Or maybe,’ Markham’s expression was grim, ‘the possession of money when others wanted it.’
‘Blimey.’
They drove in silence for a little while, watching as the town gave way to fields and bridle paths, still with that leaden sky draining colour from the landscape, smudging it with a ghostly sfumato.
‘Why not jus’ drug ’em?’ Noakes enquired finally. ‘Zonk ’em out with tablets.’
‘Maybe a “final solution” was required – something that would erase any active thinking. End of story. Case closed.’
Noakes thought for a moment. ‘Yeah, I c’n see the logic. With medication, it’s allus got to be reviewed. There’s prescriptions an’ things…. An’ pills ain’t foolproof.’
Foolproof.
Before the DI’s mind rose the haunting image of lobotomized subjects. Reduced to imbecility, their intellect severely limited by the surgery – like children, eternally destined to be five or six years old. But in reality, not children at all; often tall hulking figures of emotional complexity far beyond whatever formal intelligence was left with them, harbouring the remnants of impulses and passions that the surgeons’ knives had not totally excised.
Noakes was coming around to the DI’s theory. ‘Yeah, an op takes care of everything,’ he concluded. ‘After that, you c’n jus’ stick ’em in a home, somewhere out of the way.’
A home.
Villas. Cottages. Chalets.
Spirited away from the world. Gone from family letters, gone from family discussions, gone from family business. Gone.
Markham shuddered. What might it do to a human being to learn that a loved one had met such a fate?
These deeds must not be thought After these ways. So, it will make us mad.
‘You all right, Guv?’
‘Someone walking over my grave.’
‘Oh aye,’ Noakes grunted. ‘Let’s hope it’s not an omen.’
‘Cheers, Sergeant, that makes me feel a whole lot better.’
Jim Hewitt’s was the last in a row of shabby cottages at the edge of Riversdale Common.
The place had a neglected, unloved air and Hewitt looked equally wretched, though he was neatly dressed, while the front room was tidy if cheerless with none of the knick-knacks, photos or personal touches which make a house a home. There was no sign of anyone else around. Presumably the children were at school or college.
Having politely offered tea, he disappeared into the kitchen to make it, returning minutes later with a tray which bore not only cups and saucers but a plate of biscuits.
After the briefest of hesitations, Noakes tucked in. Seeing as the bloke had made an effort, it’d be rude not to.
Hewitt’s was an interesting face, the DI thought. So concave, it looked as though two profiles had been pressed together. Face and body were alike, very thin, possibly from the effect of some wasting fire within him, which found a vent in his sunken eyes.
‘You’re here about Doctor Warr.’ He talked flatly, with no light and shade in his voice, yet his face grew sharper and paler. ‘I’m glad he’s dead,’ he said simply, ‘but I didn’t kill him.’
Markham suddenly felt a surge of pity for Hewitt’s children, living with this wreck of a human being.
‘Did you have any contact with Doctor Warr after the inquiry?’ he asked gently.
‘He never apologized, you know.’ Hewitt ignored the q
uestion. ‘Not a word of regret. Nothing. The arrogance was unbelievable. That’s what really got me. The fact that he and the other so-called experts saw themselves as superior beings…. Warr even referred to Mary’s death as collateral damage.’ Then he seemed to register Markham’s query. ‘No, I didn’t have anything to do with him … or anyone else for that matter. I was like an untouchable. People crossed the road to avoid me – as if they thought they might catch something.’ There was an unmistakable note of bitterness in his voice as he added, ‘You find out who your friends are all right. Only that mental health campaigner gave me the time of day.’ There was something dreadfully worn about the man’s face as he looked back down the years. ‘I never got near Warr,’ he concluded. ‘The hospital saw to that. Better protected than royalty, he was. But he didn’t escape in the end.’
Then Hewitt smiled a slow smile. There was something about it that made Markham feel very uneasy, that gave him goose bumps. Even Noakes paused, a digestive halfway to his mouth.
Markham felt an overwhelming urge to be away from Jim Hewitt and out of his presence. He could tell his subordinate felt the same.
Five minutes later, they were in the car heading back to Bromgrove.
‘Poor sod,’ Noakes said. ‘No wonder he’s gone round the twist.’
‘Just how twisted is he, Sergeant, that’s the question. Twisted enough to kill?’
‘Didn’t look as if he had it in him, Guv. An’ there was no reaction when you mentioned Hayley’s name.’
‘Appearances can be deceptive, Noakes.’ Markham’s fingers drummed on the steering wheel. ‘And he admitted knowing David Belcher.’
Noakes grunted.
‘Sounds like Warr thought he was God almighty, Guv.’
‘Yes, that was interesting. Playing with people’s lives.’
As though they were pawns on a chess set.
‘What now, boss?’
‘Back to CID. You can run some checks on Kennedy and Molloy while I take a look at the DCC’s file and call in some favours at the CQC.’ Before Noakes could ask ‘Wassat?’ Markham swiftly translated, ‘The Care Quality Commission.’
‘What about DCI Sidney?’
‘I happen to know that the DCI is attending an Excellence in Policing conference in London today, Sergeant.’ Markham grinned. ‘So at least we’ll be unmolested.’
Detective Markham Mysteries Box Set Page 68